Here it is, Meme Sunday again.

This meme I lifted off of Don’t Call Me Mummy’s blog.

Its title is pretty self explanatory….8 Facts About My Mother

1. My mom was the first of 6 children and the only girl.

2. She graduated from West High School in Cleveland a year early.

3. When she was 18 years old, she married my dad. The date was July 2, 1955. It was a zillion degrees that day.

4. She had 4 kids–3 girls and a boy, of which I am the youngest (and the spoiled baby according to my siblings)

5. She graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. She went to school, had babies, and worked all at the same time! Not to mention canning fruits and veggies and taking care of animals!

6. She taught kindergarten at the local elementary school for almost 30 years. She retired in 1995.

7. She has 6 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. She has 2 more great-grandchildren on the way.

8. She is a bona-fide Disney Cruise lover.

BONUS

Of all of her kids, she loves me best! (Not really, I just added that for my siblings’ sake!)

Open tag as usual. If you’d like to play along, that’s cool with me!

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This week’s theme is “Original.” Here is a picture of the Curious George that my sister, Sue, gave to me when I was about 4 years old. He’s one of the “original” Curious George dolls. They’ve changed them a lot since then. The gave them shirts and hats and made them fluffier. Mine was simply a brown stuffed monkey with felt ears, eyes, a mouth, and a patch on his chest proclaiming that he was “Curious George.”

Mine was well loved and went everywhere with me! He was dressed in baby doll clothes and was given rides in doll buggies. He went to college with me and he made a surprise appearance at my wedding! He also went on the honeymoon with Mike and me.

Over the years he has lost his felt ears and nose. His patch has worn off. He was mauled by a dog and was used to play tug of war (Smooth move, John and Uncle Tom–you ripped his arm off. Thank you, mom, for sewing it back on!)

In this picture he is shown with some of his nieces and nephews (KT and Nick’s friends) on a Disney Cruise!

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Yeah, you can always count on your kids to embarrass you.

We went on a Disney Cruise awhile back. We knew a lot of the people who were cruising with us because we had spent about 18 months on a Disney message board getting to know our fellow cruise mates. The kids had their own thread for the cruise and chatted with many of the kids who would be on the same ship. And you know kids…..they talk to someone one time and they are “friends.” So it was no surprise when we got on the ship that the kids wanted to run off and play with all of their new buddies.

And then there were dinners. We had arranged, with some help from Disney Cruise Line, to all have the same dinner rotation at the same time. We also arranged to have all of our tables in the same general area as one another. This was great. It was like being at a family reunion minus the dysfunction of the family. Then the inevitable question came. “Mom, can I eat dinner with my friend instead of with you guys?”

(sigh) Why do they have to grow up?

Sure, why not. They are only two tables over. Go. Have fun!

And all went well. At least from 15 feet away we thought it went well. Until the parents of the friend approached us later and said, “That’s so cute that you and Mike call each other Cupcake.”

HUH? WHAT?

Turns out, KT was sharing “family secrets” with her new table mates. The only problem is, they weren’t real family secrets! She made them up!! Yup, she told them that Mike and I never call each other by our real names, but rather we refer to each other as “Cupcake.”

Word spread like wildfire through the group of about 100 people we were traveling with. Soon we were greeted in the corridors as “Cupcake and Cupcake.” It was not something I was ever going to live down.

A couple of years later we cruised with many of the same people. I figured if I can’t beat them, I might as well join them. So I created a sign for our stateroom door* that said, “Home of Cupcake and Cupcake.” It hung proudly on our door the entire week. Of course, everyone in our group knew what it meant, but I have to wonder what strangers thought as they saw the sign!

*In the picture, the “Cupcake” sign is just under the 4 green Mickey heads.

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I was asked to try out the Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Bars and give my opinion on them. I received two “flavors” of bars–peanut crunch and almond crunch. The worst part about it is that I cannot choose which one is my favorite!

These are wonderful (and I’m not just saying that because they were free). They taste great and are relatively good for you. The ingredient list is surprisingly short for such tasty snacks. Seriously, each type only includes SIX ingredients! It’s so easy to scan the list to see if there is anything in there that isn’t good for you. There isn’t a single preservative or hard to pronounce chemical. For example, the peanut crunch bars contain the following: Peanuts, sunflower seeds, sugar, corn syrup, salt, almond flour. That’s it!

Things to note on the nutritional panel (Again, this is for the peanut bars. The almond bar nutritional info varies slightly). Each bar contains 190 calories. It is a bit shocking to see 12 grams of fat, but hey, 10 grams of that is monounsaturated–the GOOD stuff! Not a single gram of trans fat! Yeah! They also have NO cholesterol! Each bar contains 2 grams of fiber and 7 grams of sugars, and a whopping 7 grams of protein!!

So here you have a protein packed bar that has a bit of fat (but mostly the good fat), not an incredible amount of sugars, and IT TASTES GOOD!

Decently healthy and it TASTES GOOD! I mean, come on, how often does “healthy” go hand in hand with “tastes good?”

We’re heading out on a long flight on Wednesday and I plan to throw several of these in my carry on in case we need bit of a snack. They taste good and are completely satisfying! I will definitely be buying more of these. I encourage you to give them a try!

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Well, here it is, it’s been one week since I joined the challenge. Let me refresh you on my goals. One week ago I said I wanted:

*To drink a minimum of 60 oz of water each day

*To not eat anything after 7:30 p.m. unless it is fruits or veggies

*To exercise a MINIMUM of 30 minutes a MINIMUM of 3 days a week

*To work on menu planning better to avoid having to eat out as much

*To allow myself to enjoy the vacation coming up without stressing about food/exercies/etc…..but not to go overboard.

So how did I do?

*Well, most days I did drink a minimum of 60 ounces of water. Once I even drank 80! One day I was away from home quite a bit so I only drank 40 ounces.

*I did well not eating anything after 7:30. One night I ate dinner after 7:30, but I don’t consider that a failure. My “rule” is in place so I don’t eat dinner at 6:30 and then snack constantly from 7:00-10:00! On the night I ate after 7:30, I did not snack at all after that, so I’m good.

*Yeah, the exercise thing…..harder to get motivated with that. I did exercise once….in the last week. I have been more active this past week as I’ve gotten ready for vacation. A lot of stair climbing as I’ve gone around the house finding things to pack. Add to that a lot of cleaning. But as for structured exercise….only once.

*I did decent on the menu planning. We only had to go out once for an “emergency” dinner because I didn’t have a plan in place.

*When this post goes live, I’ll be at the airport waiting for my flight. I’ll do my best to not gorge, but I fully intend to enjoy vacation! As we’re doing Disneyland and various sites around San Diego, I’m sure I won’t be sitting on my rear all day.

Current weight: 163.2 Up a whole pound. Woo-hoo. Oh well. Can’t stress about it. Weights fluctuate day to day.

Thanks, Dawn, for adding this to Mr. Linky for me. I won’t be checking in next week because I’ll still be gone.

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